Can God Save Mongolia?

Yesterday’s news from Mongolia is unique, and it raises questions about whether there might just be light at the end of the tunnel. It is impossible not to be tantalized by the potential of these events to change the course of Mongolia’s history. What’s important, however, is that we focus on what this means to the people. The media seems too caught up in dissecting the macro-level situation to pay attention to what’s important on the ground. Just call it missing the battle for the bullets.

When thinking about the recent problems, it’s important to remember three things: One, people don’t behave like car salesmen, so attempts to treat them as such inevitably look foolish. Car salesmen never suddenly shift their course in order to fit with a predetermined set of beliefs. Two, Mongolia has spent decades as a dictatorship closed to the world, so a mindset of peace and stability will seem foreign and strange. And three, freedom is an extraordinarily powerful idea: If ethnic conflict is Mongolia’s glass ceiling, then freedom is certainly its flowerpot.

When I was in Mongolia last January, I was amazed by the variety of the local cuisine, and that tells me two things. It tells me that the citizens of Mongolia have no shortage of human capital, and that is a good beginning to grow from. Second, it tells me that people in Mongolia are just like people anywhere else on this flat earth of ours.

So what should we do about the chaos in Mongolia? Well, it’s easier to start with what we should not do. We should not lob a handful of cruise missiles and hope that some explosions will snap Mongolia’s leaders to attention. Beyond that, we need to be careful to nurture these first inklings of a moderate, modern society. The opportunity is there, but I worry that the path to peace is so poorly marked that Mongolia will have to move down it very slowly. And of course Ulaanbaatar needs to come to terms with its own history.

Speaking with a up-and-coming violinist from the large Jewish community here, I asked her if there was any message that she wanted me to carry back home with me. She pondered for a second, and then smiled and said, xi fe li sen, which is a local saying that means roughly, “A Deaf Husband and a Blind Wife are Always a Happy Couple.”

I don’t know what Mongolia will be like a few years from now, but I do know that it will probably look very different from the country we see now, even if it remains true to its basic cultural heritage. I know this because, through all the disorder, the people still haven’t lost sight of their dreams.

By THOMAS L. FRIEDMAN